Nicely done.  Well written technically and thematically.  My only criticism: your description explicity says that Jonah is "forced to reconsider his love for, and trust in, the machine" but I in my view it's ambiguous.  I wondered if perhaps Jonah might be instinctively drawn to the book because, ultimately, he will end up seeing himself as the prophet of some computerized holy law.  Or will he learn something from the gift he received?  Maybe you didn't intend to imply the mystery, but for me, that's what made it fun!

Hi Ethan, I read the story, and thought it was fairly interesting. Reminded me of the film Equilibrium.

While I can accept the world after the UCM, I thought that the protagonist, being an apparently-brainwashed servant of the computer, was a bit difficult to relate to. He revealed very little about what he actually enjoyed outside of his job, or even why he enjoyed his job in the first place. I felt like we were reading about a robot, and that you could make the character stronger by giving him a little more humanity. In fact, it would make his complete trust in the computer a bit more disturbing.

I think there are a couple of contradictions that could be fixed easily. For instance, if the UCM is so vital to society, why is it so easy to turn off? Why is the ability to turn it off even an option if it's the kind of crime that can get someone arrested?

I also wonder why books seem to be so hard to come by, if the professor had been using them within the time of his teaching career. I'm thinking no more than thirty or forty years can likely have passed for a Ph.D in a world without teachers to still be alive. So what happened to all the books in so short a time? Were they banned and destroyed? If so, why does the protagonist have no issue with Rossum's collection?

You luckily left yourself quite a bit of room, and I think that the story might be worth expanding to make Jonah a little more fleshed out. And perhaps we can get some insight as to why Rossum actually WOULD turn his UCM off, as it doesn't seem to be resolved during the story, or why the UCM seems to struggle so much with getting Rossum, or why Rossum seems to get Jonah so much. Perhaps I missed something.

Anyway, I enjoyed it well enough. Well done.

Ethan,

I took the time to read this one twice. The second time through I marked it up with numerous comments and notes, and suggested a few revisions. I hope you’re not offended—I don’t want to seem invasive, but I think you’ve got some skill and I wanted to suggest some ways to improve your style, cut out unnecessary “to be” verbs (AKA passive voice) and highlight some areas where you tell rather than show. Check out the attached word document to see those comments.

The story itself intrigues me, as do the numerous religious undertones. However, without a Judaeu Christian background, much of the message of the story gets lost. That’s a problem, as you have no guarantees who will read the story. I suggest being a bit less opaque about the name Jonah, and at least contextualize it a bit for readers from different religious backgrounds.

Clark’s World Magazine lists the following among their submission no-nos:

“Stories that depend on some vestigial belief in Judeo-Christian mythology in order to be frightening (i.e., Cain and Abel are vampires, the End Times are a' comin', Communion wine turns to Christ's literal blood and it's HIV positive, Satan's gonna getcha, etc.)”

(I think this applies inversly to the way you implement religous themes into your piece).

As far as what you leave subtle and what you make explicit, I agree with Kurt Vonnegut:

“Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.”

I think you’ve strayed from curiosity building to a touch frustrating. I want a little bit more “story” here and a more robust conclusion.

A few criticisms:
1: You take a lot of time to establish that Dr. Rossum’s PHD isn’t recorded by the U.C.M. In a story this short, a paragraph is an eternity—you MUST make that pay off later in the story, or you need to omit it. Otherwise you create an “open loop” for the reader.
2: The world straddles high technology and low technology (ubiquitous, universal AI / paper files which imply printers / mechanical levers). This is fine, but I want to see how those two realities intersect and why.
3) You could use more “action beats” to help clarify your dialogue. I included an example in my notes.
4) You rely on telling far more than you need to. I marked those bits as well.
5) I think the story need a bit of a scrubbing, mostly for passive voice and “to be” verbs, as well as a few stylistic improvements. I’ve highlighted what I mean by that within the story.

Overall: I really enjoyed it. I wouldn’t have sunk this much time in if I didn’t. You knew what sort of story you wanted to tell, and I appreciate that. Your story, while rough around the edges, has a lot of promise, as do you as a writer.

Kind Regards,
Nathan

There are some very interesting ideas here.  The UCM is intriguing, though I'm not sure I fully grasped the extent of what it was, or why come the end of the story it was presented as being fallible.  I do enjoy a story with religious undertones - the biblical references and making the most of his name suggests that the more interesting story will occur after this meeting.  As such it feels like a flashback or a prologue.  I'd like to read on and see how you use the religious aspects further.  What would your whale be like?  Would he be a prophet for God or would he remain on the side of the false God?  Jonah himself could do with some more fleshing out.  There needs to be more of a conflict within him, even in a story as short of this.  There is a great deal of potential here, keep with it!